Pink Prickly Pear

In which I am neighborly, but my neighbors are decidedly NOT.

One thing I will not miss is the playground/dog-park combo down the street.  You might think this would be a win-win situation, since I have children and a dog, but it's really not.  My boy needs all of my attention while he attempts to scale new heights at every playground visit, so unless Mr. Pear is with us and available to keep an eye on our dog, we leave her at home.

It would appear that the playground/dog-park combo attracts less families with dogs, and more child-free haters who have nothing better to do than to come to the park every afternoon with their ill behaved, decidedly not under-voice-control dogs, and let them not only crap all over the field, but mark every last vertical space on the playground, despite numerous signs posted requesting they keep their dogs on the field (and, by the way, pick up their crap)..

So yesterday, I'm at the park, and this big old golden retriever takes a massive dump on the grass within about four feet of the sandpit.  I look around.  Is anyone on this dog?  Apparently not.  Some youngish guy who'd been sitting nearby makes a stinkface and gets up and moves away from the massive dump.  He's with some other dog.

No one is paying any attention to Old Golden.  He lumbers over to the play structure and casually lifts his leg.  A surprisingly vigorous stream of piss splatters in the sand, and up a pillar.  I attempt to shoo the dog.  It blinks at me.  Finally, some old man notices and starts walking towards the playground.  I give him a smile and a friendly wave, "Is this your dog?  He left us a little present on the hillside there."

Despite my friendly approach, it all goes downhill from there.

Old Man gumbles at me: I'm moving him!

PPP: Yeah, that's fine.  Hey, the poop's right over there.

Old Man and Old Golden walk off in the other direction.  I give him the benefit of the doubt.  There is a handy little poop sack dispenser on the other side of the field.  But after a few feet, Old Man just stops and stands.  I give him a minute.  

PPP raising my voice a little.  Maybe he's deaf: Are you going to get this?

Old Man glares at me.

PPP, cheerily picking up my barefooted boy:  Do you need a baggie?

I start off across the field, grab a bag from the dispenser.  Old Man glares at me as I walk back across the field, but as soon as it becomes apparent that I am headed straight for him, to give him the bag, he quickly looks away and starts to walk in the opposite direction.

PPP:  Am I really going to have to pick up after your dog myself?

Old Man:  You do whatever you wanna do, lady!

PPP is momentarily speechless and just staring at him.

Old Man looks around:  What the hell are you staring at?

PPP:  Well aren't you neighborly?  

Old Man sort of...hoots?  Barks?:  Whatever.

PPP bent over and scooped Old Golden's nasty turd.  

So nasty, I know.  But if I hadn't, some poor kid would undoubtedly have stepped in it.  You know what's more disturbing than Old Man and his totally anti-social behavior?  The fact that not a single other person stepped in.  Not even the young guy who I know saw the whole thing from beginning to end (and apparently took great delight in watching my whole interaction with Old Man).

This is why I'm convinced the whole playground/dog-park combos attract malicious child-free haters intent on deliberately leaving little presents for the kids to step in.   I've accompanied Tanky to dog parks for several years now, and I have to say that this particular park with the playground has more abandoned turds than any other park I've visited, including the totally illegal impromptu dog park in the woods back in DC.  I mean, if ever there was a place to nonchalantly whistle and look off into the distance and pretend you didn't see your dog take a giant dump, it would be in an undeveloped clearing in the woods, but no way!  If you so much as delayed picking up after your dog while you fumbled in your pocket for a recycled Safeway bag, everyone would be all over you, "Who's on the black lab?!?!" "This little Maltese just dropped a number two!"  You better be standing there, plastic mitt on, hovering over a pile so fresh it's still steaming!

Asshole Old Man is so lucky I had my boy present, and therefore had my Modeling Good Citizenship hat on, because otherwise?  Otherwise, he would have found himself wearing that not quite closed properly bag of poo, and let me tell you, my aim would have been true.

Temporarily took down my links while I figure out a weird glitch!

Sigh.  Technology.  Really doesn't make my life easier...

EDITED TO ADD: Oh. Looks like I just needed to know how to count.  To fourteen. 

Things I suppose I might have expected from chronic sleep deprivation.

1. Obviously, feeling tired.

2. Forgetting the words for...things.  Everything?  The number of times I say, "I just need to pick up that...aw, shit...the..uh, thingy!  You know what I mean!" is staggering.  What's interesting is it isn't that I've just forgotten what it was I wanted - I can remember the thing, can picture it in my head, can describe it (big fluffy thing, need it to dry off with after my shower!), but just can't remember the word.  Also, I've noticed that adults happily supply me with the right word, or are happy to guess, but children?  Children just stand and stare at me and wonder how I could have gotten so big, but remained so ill informed.

3. Also - forgetting people's names.  I am usually pretty good with names, even more so with faces.  The other day, we were at the park and I just could not for life of me remember this one woman's name.  I've known her for at least six months, have had several conversations with her, consider it a budding friendship, etc. but all day I just could not pull up her name.  It would have been totally embarrassing to ask someone, although hey lookie, I'm embarrassing myself now, aren't I? 

I know we all have times when a word, or a name is temporarily irretrievable, but I find it lasts longer.  For example, I've been intermittently trying to remember the name of our property manager, because I need to call and ask her a question.  It's nothing particularly pressing, but it's been about two weeks now, and her name just isn't coming to me.  I'm sure her number is in my contact list on my phone, so it's not a totally lost cause, but what the heck? 

4.  While I'm blaming my lack of sleep, I'm going to go ahead and chalk up the hideous state of my skin at the moment to chronic sleep deprivation. 

5.  Impatience.  Ha ha.  Actually to be honest, let's call it "quick to enrage"...and it is a quickness to rageful feelings about the oddest assortment of things!  Sort of like Road Rage (although interestingly enough, I haven't experienced any of that), but Junk Mail Rage and Goddamn It SpellCheck, I Know That Word Already Rage and Why Isn't That Book At The Library Rage and Why Does My Neighbor's Dog Always Have To Wander Right Up To My Door And Make My Dog Crazy Rage.  I suppose I have temporarily lost the ability to let the very smallest of things roll off my back, which really doesn't say much for anything bigger than the very smallest of things ie. everything else.

6.  Being a complete and total conversational dud.  I just lack the energy.  I won't remember what you said anyway, and I certainly won't remember what I started to tell you...

Oh.  I've gone and made it sound dire...  I do get some sleep.  Some mornings, I get to sleep in a little (if I'm able to fall back asleep) and I often fall asleep when I'm putting the boy to bed in the evening, but I don't think I've slept more than three hours at a stretch in over a year.  I do sleep, a bit, but it isn't the stuff dreams are made of.

Dear East Coast Relatives,

The change to Daylight Savings Time confuses me sometimes too!

Just remember, we all fell back, so we're still 3 hours behind you.  Which means that 7:24 is still too early to call, even if your morning feels well underway at almost half past ten!

Cheerio!

Triple P

P.S.  I've had my coffee now, so feel free to give me a ring!

Mustaches are back and I don't like it.

I kind of hate facebook.

It does things I don't want it to do. 

Which is why I deleted my account last time.

But then everyone and their mother got on there and I was kind of feeling like I was missing the party.

But now it pulled up my old (deleted) account and there's this big old widget on my (previously anonymous-ish blog) with my real name and a link to my facebook page and I can't figure out how to delete the damn thing.

I have so.much.time.for.this.

So I bought new running shoes.  Yawn.  Not news.  But running shoes made in the USA?  That's some news.  Some good news.  I took them out for an inaugural run this morning and my feet are very, very happy indeed.  And no, they weren't outrageously expensive or hideous or anything like that.  Thank you, New Balance. 

Last night I watched enough of The Future of Food to thoroughly freak myself out a bit regarding genetic engineering.  I fell asleep at about the halfway point, so I'll try and finish it tonight, but I somehow doubt I missed the happy ending.  And then this morning, while D'anjou napped, Mini-Pear and I watched King Corn about High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Having watched the stuff about genetically modified foods made the information about the pervasiveness of HFCS even more alarming.

Afterwards, I guiltily ransacked our kitchen cabinets.  HFCS is in everything, isn't it?  Well, maybe it is in a ton of stuff, but happily, I didn't find any at our house.  MSG made a surprise appearance in a package of Planters peanuts (we also had a bag of peanuts from Trader Joes with three ingredients - peanuts, peanut oil and salt), but no HFCS!  I even checked things that seemed like the perfect candidates for a little hidden sweetener - bread, barbeque sauce, a box of crackers...nada.  It's reassuring to see that we weren't going to have to make any big changes to our diets or shopping habits.  I mean, I wasn't a total rube...we're former vegans at our house, but I've certainly become a lot more relaxed about our food and I had suspicions that my new (over the past couple of years) mantra of "everything in moderation" might have let some unsavory ingredients in the back door. 

I do think I will exercise a little more moderation in the meals I eat outside of the house though. 

It is the kind of morning where I take you back to bed well before 10 am.  The sound of someone's leaf blower is incessant - a nagging, continual blaring.  I feel something akin to rage welling up beneath my shoulder blades (of all places).

Downstairs, I hope scrambled eggs will accomplish what a double cappucino has not.

It is still grey here on the coast and I am glad of it.  We are to meet friends at the beach later. It will be impossibly bright by then.

I take it back!

What I said about having a trusty mechanic.

Who charges $165 for a new battery?

The AAA membership pays off!

We're lucky not to feel the unseasonable heat in our house.  I have the windows open and a couple of ceiling fans on and the ocean breeze keeps us nice and cool.  So yesterday, when our unschooling friends were meeting at a local pool, I almost bagged it.  A pool?  Who picked a pool?  Is it heated? 

By the time we got there, you couldn't have kept me away from that water, heated or not (it was).  Once we left our little micro-climate here on the hilltop, it was hot out there!  D'anjou's first dip into a pool and he loved it.  He kept trying to put his face in the water, smiling at all the kids splashing around us.  The only reason we got out was to avoid overexposure to the sun.  We retired to a shady lounge chair and watched Mini-Pear and her friends play for another 2 hours. 

I'm still adjusting to shepherding two children.  D'anjou's milky white chubby bits remained snowy, but poor Mini-Pear's cheeks were so flushed by the time we all walked over to the adjoining playground.  After braving the hot Santa Ana's wind for about half an hour, albeit under the shade of the lone tree, we decided to trek back to the sea breezes.

But there's a  Jimbo's right by the park!  I didn't have a dinner plan yet!  Why not pick up a couple of smoothies, a nice loaf of bread and some organic sandwich stuffin's?  Grand idea, mama, especially with my sun-tired children reaching the end of their respective days.

We made our detour, and were back out to the car in no time.  I was tired too.  The stop?  Maybe not such a great idea.  I turned the key in the ignition.  Nothing.  The car was hot from being parked in the sun all day.  We could't even sit in it long enough to make a phone call.  Everybody out, including our freshly purchased food.

Still, no catastrophe.  I called AAA, wisely returned our perishables to Jimbo's, and tried to find a coolish spot to wait.  No one's air conditioning seemed to work.  D'anjou was wailing inconsolably.  We dragged a couple of molten (who paints them black in this sun?!?!?) patio chairs over into a miniscule patch of shaded concrete to await the towtruck.

Truck #1 comes, jumps the battery.  Admonishes me to check and see what I might have left on in the car.  I pack up the kids, stroller, groceries, sit in the driver's seat, reach for the shifter and...the engine gives out.

Truck #1 is gone.  I call AAA again.  The dispatcher hears my wailing baby and puts a rush on a second truck.  I call Mr. Pear.  It's plain the car is going to need towing and I'm going to need a lift.  He arrives in a friend's car just as our car is getting hitched up to the truck. 

All told, we spent about two hours hanging out in the Jimbo's parking lot.  Truck #2 towed the car to our trusty local mechanic (I can't tell you how nice it feels to say that, after not having one for most of my adult life) and we headed home to eat sandwiches, de-chlorinate in the shower and flop into bed, completely spent from a very full day in the hot winds.

Our mechanic called first thing this morning, but hasn't called back to let me know what might need repairing.  Our car is getting old (OMG!  It's 12!).  Finger's crossed this isn't the death knell!  You know I hate shopping.  Don't make me have to buy a car!